Hervey White
American | other_names = | known_for = | occupation = Artist, entrepreneur }} Hervey White (1866-1944) was an American poet, novelist, and community-builder. Life Overview He was a founder of the Byrdcliffe Colony in Woodstock, New York. He went on to create a more radical artists' colony, the Maverick. Both Byrdcliffe and the Maverick are part of what is today called the Woodstock Art Colony. Before Woodstock White was born in Iowa and raised on a Kansas farm. A scholarship to Harvard University, where he read the works of socially-conscious art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), solidified his burgeoning libertarian ideals.Tom Wolf, "Hervey White's Maverick Colony and Its Artists", in The Maverick: Hervey White's Colony of the Arts, exh. cat. Woodstock: Woodstock Artists Association and Museum, 2006, pp. 11–12. Pinpointing White's anti-patrician identity, artist and Byrdcliffe cofounder Bolton Brown (1864-1936) would describe White as "far prouder of hailing from a ranch in Kansas" than of graduating from Harvard.Bolton Brown, “Early Days at Woodstock,” published posthumously in 1937, reprinted in Bolton Coit Brown: A Retrospective, exh. cat. New Paltz: Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY, 2003, p.74. After graduating and traveling through parts of Italy, White moved to Chicago and worked for Hull House, a settlement that provided a creative and educational environment for poor residents of the surrounding neighborhoods. In its spirit of democratic cultural outreach, Hull House acted as a model for White's Maverick Colony. While at Hull House, White wrote his first novel, Differences (1899). Byrdcliffe and the Maverick In 1902 White joined forces with Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead (1854–1929) and painter-lithographer Bolton Brown to found the Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts Colony in Woodstock, New York, conceived as a utopian community of studios, workshops, and artistic gatherings which would nurture creative freedom in the idyllic setting of the Catskill Mountains. Byrdcliffe was based on models provided by the Arts and Crafts movement in England, including Ruskin's own unsuccessful artists' colony, St. George.Nancy E. Green, "The Reality of Beauty: Ralph Whitehead and the Seeds of a Utopia in John Ruskin, William Morris, and Victorian England", in Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony, exh. cat. Ithaca: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 2004, pp. 38–40. However, shortly after the colony's establishment, Brown and White each parted ways with Whitehead—White by choice, while Brown was terminated.Derin Tanyol, "'Stone, The Most Perfect of Surfaces': Bolton Brown in the Sierra and Woodstock", Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 11,2 (Summer 2012). Each found the aristocratic but reform-minded Whitehead's version of democracy too rigorously structured. In 1905, White purchased a farm just outside of Woodstock with Fritz van der Loo and Carl Eric Lindin, intended as a rustic haven for the three friends and their families. It quickly transformed into an intellectual meeting place and was named the Maverick; artists, writers, and musicians took up residence in minimalistic houses, usually little more than shacks, built on the property. White's short-lived marriage to Byrdcliffe printmaker Vivian Bevans ended in 1908; White's homosexual leanings, addressed overtly in his writings, are a possible cause.Wolf, p. 14. White would go on to build the Maverick into a thriving community with makeshift studios, a printing press, and a steady output of publications devoted to literature and the visual arts, most notably The Wild Hawk and The Plowshare.Wolf, pp. 16-17. The Maverick Festivals and Concerts In 1915, White planned the first of the Maverick Festivals, which included music and theatrical performances. Bacchanalian and raucous but with a firmly creative underpinning, the Maverick Festivals were the precursors to the famous Woodstock Music Festival of 1969. Revelers were encouraged to come in costume; period photographs include men and women with flowers in their hair, a historical prototype for the popular cliché of the Woodstock hippie. Intended to offset the tremendous debt White incurred building his colony, the first Maverick Festival represented a great spirit of unity among previously feuding community activists and artists, who in 1919 went on to form the Woodstock Artists Association. The festivals were by the 1920s an annual occurrence, in August on the night of the full moon:Wolf, p. 19 they lasted until 1931, when their reputation for wildness (numbers of attendees reached, according to some reports, as many as 6000) pressured White to put an end to his tradition. In 1916 White began sponsoring concerts, primarily classical music; the Maverick concert hall has been home to performances by Paul Robeson and John Cage. Cage's notorious 4'33" premiered there in 1952. The Maverick Concerts music festival continues to this day, with a series of concerts held every weekend from late June through early September. It is the oldest continuous summer music festival in the United States. Hervey White's historical legacy is as an author, utopian, and philosopher. In popular press and local culture, his long hair, beard, baggy white linens and purple silks are celebrated as the hallmarks of Woodstock's cultural identity."Woodstock of the Catskills and the Byrdcliffe Artists," Christian Science Monitor (Jan. 8, 1924), p. 12. Publications Poetry *''A Ship of Sorts: Being a group of poems written and printed by Hervey White. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1910. *''In an Old Man's Garden. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1910. *''New Songs for Old''. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1910. *''The Adventures of Young Maverick. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1911. *The Passing Year, 1912. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1911. *''Youth's Worship. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1929. *''Tinker Tom''. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1930. Plays *''The Assassin: A tragedy in four acts. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1911. *Green Peppers: A comedy in three acts. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1913. *''Border Freaks: A play in three acts. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1930. *''The Prodigal Father: A comedy in three acts''. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1935. Novels *''Differences. . Boston: Small, Maynard, 1899. *Quicksand. Boston: Small, Maynard, 1900. *The House in the Road: A fantasy of truth. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1913. *''Man Overboard! A naughty novel. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1920. *''The Amours of Peterkin''. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1931. Short fiction *''When Eve Was Not Created, and other stories. Boston: Small, Maynard, 1901. Juvenile *Noll and the Fairies'' (illustrated by Elizabeth Krysher). Chicago: H.S. Stone, 1903. *''Snake gold: A tale of Indian treasure, of an ancient emblem and its power over men to-day, and of the hazard of Casa Blanca'' (illustrated by Elizabeth Mackinstry). New York: Macmillan, 1926. *''Childhood Fancies''. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1927. *''Boy's Vision''. Woodstock, NY: Maverick Press, 1928. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Hervey White, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Apr. 22, 2015. See also *List of U.S. poets References Notes External links ;Poems *Hervey White in The New Poetry: An anthology: "Last Night," "I Saw the Clouds" ;Books *Hervey White at Amazon.com ;About *Hervey White, Harvard Magazine *"Woodstock's first hippie" at Woodstock Arts *Hervey White and Vivian Bevins: The family story *Hervey White and the Maverick Art Colony, Maverick Festival Woodstock 1915-1931. *Maverick concerts history ;Etc. *Woodstock Artists Association and Museum *Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard Category:American novelists Category:American poets Category:People from Ulster County, New York Category:1866 births Category:1944 deaths Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets